Ruby Walsh and top trainer Paul Nicholls are to cease working together, thus bringing to an end one of the most successful jump racing partnerships of recent times.

Walsh has decided to focus on working with trainer Willie Mullins in future, citing the travelling back and forth from the UK regularly to work with Nicholls as an issue.

The partnership is not entirely finished however, as Nicholls said Walsh will still ride for him "when he is needed and when he is available".

Many of racing’s most famous horses – Denman, Big Bucks and Kauto Star – have been led to success by the Walsh and Nicholls partnership.

Nicholls wrote of his relationship with Walsh in his Betfair column: "Myself and Ruby have been chatting for the past couple of months. It was clear that the constant travelling to and from Ireland, with his wife Gillian and the girls at home, was becoming a bit of a grind for him," he said.

"It would have been exhausting for someone young and single, let alone a grey and ageing family man!

"But he was getting up before 5am, and not getting home until after 8pm, when riding over here - before his girls got up in the morning, and after they went to bed most nights - and when you have a young family that must really take its toll.

"He came over to explain his decision on Saturday, and we both agreed it was the best way forward in the circumstances.

"Ruby had a difficult and unenviable job trying to satisfy both myself and Willie Mullins down the years, so at least that's another weight off his mind, as well as the travelling."

Image: Paul Nicholls (r) with Ruby Walsh ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan